Over these next two weeks we’re going to subjectively rank and analyze every player on the Yankees’ 40-man roster — based on their short and long-term importance to the team — and you’ll inevitably disagree with our rankings. We’ve already covered Nos. 3-5, 6-10, 11-14, 15-16, 17-19, 20-25, 26-31, and 32-40.

(Alex Goodlett/Getty)

We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. We’re down to the final two players in our 40-man roster rankings. The actual process of ranking the players was pretty difficult — tougher than I thought it would be when I came up with the idea for the series — though I felt the top two spots were pretty easy. When you have two guys only one year into massive nine-figure contracts, of course they’re the most important players on the roster.

No. 2 in our rankings is the Yankees’ de facto star position player. The Derek Jeter era is now over and the Robinson Cano era ended last year, so the team has neither an iconic ex-star nor a bonafide present day star. Someone has to take over as the face of the franchise though, and our next player seems most likely to do that, at least on the position player side. On to the next player in our rankings.

2015 Role: Everyday center fielder and upper-third of the order hitter. Ellsbury is a leadoff hitter by trade and I expect him to start this coming season atop the lineup, but, as we saw last year, Joe Girardi is open to using him as his number three hitter if no better options exist. Ellsbury is greatly miscast as a number three hitter but that’s the way it goes.

Either way, Ellsbury is going to hit in the top three spots of the lineup. He is arguably the best hitter on the team, at least in the sense that he’s an above-average hitter and his performance is fairly predictable. This isn’t Brian McCann trying to come back from a down year or Carlos Beltran coming back from a bone spur in his elbow. Ellsbury has no such questions. Last year was a typical Ellsbury year (107 wRC+ in 2014 and 109 wRC+ career) and it’s easy to forecast the same thing for 2015.

In the field, Ellsbury is an impact player thanks to his good reads and incredible range. He’s a game-changer in center even though the defensive stats weren’t a fan of his work in 2014. (That seems to happen with all Yankees’ center fielders whenever Brett Gardner is in left.) Ellsbury’s arm is laughably weak but he makes up for it with superior ball-hawking skills. He’s a key component in the team’s renewed emphasis on defense.

Simply put, the Yankees will count on Ellsbury to be a two-way impact player. Someone who drives the offense and leads the up the middle defense. The Yankees lack a true star-caliber performer and Ellsbury is the closest thing they have to one.

(Mike Stobe/Getty)

Long-Term Role: Considering the Yankees signed Ellsbury to a seven-year contract worth $153M just last offseason, it better be “two-way impact player” for the next several years. I thought the contract was way out line with his value as a player at the time of the signing — Gardner is the same damn player and look at his deal — and nothing I saw in year one has changed my opinion. But what’s done is done.

There are six years left on Ellsbury’s contract and that guarantees he will remain a focal point in the offense going forward. Just look at Mark Teixeira. His offense has been steadily declining for years yet he remains in the middle of the order because that’s what he was signed to do. Ellsbury will inevitably wind up hitting in the top third of the batting order longer than he deserves. He’s signed through age 36. At some point the skills will start to erode.

I think the best case scenario for the rest of Ellsbury’s contract is Johnny Damon. They’re similar players but not exactly the same — Ellsbury steals more bases and is better in the field, Damon had more pop and pure on-base ability, plus he was much more durable — but they had similar roles. They were the top of the order table-setters and center fielders. Damon was an above-average hitter from age 31-36 (114 wRC+) and it wasn’t until his age 33 season that he had to start the transition over into left field.

Hopefully Ellsbury follows the same career path as Damon and remains a solid, above-average contributor for the bulk of his contract. That would make it all worth it for the Yankees. His long-term importance to the team is created by that contract — Ellsbury is under contract longer than any other position player on the roster (by two years!) and at premium dollars. When you make that sort of commitment to a player, you need him to be a difference-maker.

Coming Friday: No. 1. You know who it is. You’ve known since the start.

This is your open thread for the night. The Knicks, Nets, and Devils are all in action, and I’m sure there’s some college basketball on somewhere. Talk about those games, the snow, or anything else that’s on your mind right here. Go nuts.

Got some miscellaneous free agent notes to pass along. One involves a former Yankees player who has signed elsewhere and two involve players who have yet to sign.

Johan Santana dealing with shoulder discomfort

Two weeks ago we learned two-time Cy Young award winner Johan Santana was on the comeback trail after missing all of 2013 and 2014 with shoulder and Achilles injuries, and that the Yankees were going to “keep an eye on him” during his stint in winter ball. Santana retired all six men he faced in his first outing and reportedly hit 90 on the radar gun.

Last week, however, Santana missed his scheduled start due to discomfort in his twice surgically repaired shoulder. JonHeyman says no structural damage was found in Johan’s shoulder, and, although he threw a bullpen session last Friday, he will not make another start according to JonMorosi. “He will be ready for Spring Training,” said his agent. There’s nothing to lose by giving Santana a minor league contract and seeing what happens in Spring Training, but this is a harsh little reminder that he’s far from a guarantee to contribute in any way going forward.

White Sox did not place high bid for Robertson

Weird. (Chicago Tribune)

Earlier this offseason the Yankees lost closer David Robertson — well, they didn’t lose him, really, they let him go after signing Andrew Miller — to the White Sox, who gave him a four-year contract worth $46M. Last week though, ChiSox GM Rick Hahn confirmed to Dan Hayes they did not make Robertson the highest offer and he turned down more money elsewhere to go to Chicago’s south side.

There’s no word on who did place the high bid, but my guess is either the Astros or Blue Jays, most likely the former. More than a few players have turned down Houston this offseason and taken less money elsewhere, including Miller, Ryan Vogelsong, and possibly Chase Headley. The Blue Jays reportedly wanted Robertson as well, though it’s unclear if they ever seriously pursued him. Has to be the Astros, right? Turns out that treating players like numbers and not people hurts your image and doesn’t make you a desirable destination for free agents. Who’d a thunk it?

Yankees continue to show strong interest in Hector Olivera

In the Dominican Republic last week, free agent Cuban third baseman Hector Olivera held an open showcase event and more than 200 scouts were in attendance, according to Jesse Sanchez. The Yankees, along with the Giants, Padres, Rangers, and Braves, are among the teams showing “strong interest” in Olivera at this point. He is still waiting to be declared a free agent by MLB and unblocked by the Office of Foreign Assets Control so he can sign.

Olivera is not some kind of up-and-coming prospect — he turns 30 in April and is MLB ready. The Yankees don’t really have a spot for another third baseman on the roster, not unless they release A-Rod anyway, and I doubt Olivera is looking to sign with a team to be a bench player. A few weeks ago Ben Badler called Olivera a better player than outfielder Yasmany Tomas, who signed a six-year, $68.5M deal with the Diamondbacks this winter. New York’s interest seems to be due diligence more than anything.

Background
The Yankees scout Venezuela as well as anyone, and, on the first day of the 2012-13 international signing period, they plucked Torrens out of Valencia, the third largest city in the country. He had been working out with Carlos Rios, formerly the Yankees’ international scouting director. Torrens received a $1.3M signing bonus, the largest the club gave out in the first year of the new international spending restrictions. He was mostly an infielder at the time.

Pro Career
After signing, the Yankees moved Torrens behind the plate full-time and were so impressed with how quickly he took to the position that they sent him to the rookie Gulf Coast League as a 17-year-old in 2013. Torrens held his own at the plate — .241/.348/.299 (100 wRC+) with one homer, a 13.2% walk rate, and a 19.6% strikeout rate in 48 games — while throwing out 19 of 43 attempted base-stealers (45%). It was a nice debut for a kid would should have been a high school junior.

The Yankees aggressively sent Torrens to Low-A Charleston last year, where he was the second young player in the league. He went 4-for-26 (.154) at the plate in nine games before a shoulder strain sent him to the DL for two months. After a quick six-game tune-up with the GCL Yanks, Torrens joined the short season Staten Island Yankees in June and hit .270/.327/.405 (115 wRC+) with two homers in 48 games as the youngest player in the NY-Penn League. At one point he had a 21-game hitting streak. Torrens also threw out 23 of 55 attempted base-stealers (42%) with the Baby Bombers.

Scouting Report
Despite his relative inexperience behind the plate, Torrens draws raves for his defense, particularly his receiving and his mobility blocking pitches in the dirt. His strong arm plays up because of a quick and clean release. Torrens had no trouble catching any of the team’s high-velocity prospects like Luis Severino, David Palladino, and Jordan Foley last summer.

At the plate, Torrens stands out for his approach and ability to adjust to breaking pitches. Most of his power is into the gaps right now but he can pull the ball to left field with authority. Torrens is still only 18 and he’s listed at 6-foot-0 and 175 lbs., so he still has plenty of time to fill out his frame and get stronger, though right now he projects as more of a higher AVG, high OBP guy rather than a big power hitter. Here’s some video:

Torrens is a good athlete who was a legitimate prospect at third base before moving behind the plate. He’s not very fast, so, like most catchers, he won’t be a weapon on the bases. Torrens still has a lot of work ahead of him but he took to catching extremely well, so it’s no surprise he gets very high marks for his makeup, work ethic, and baseball aptitude.

2015 Outlook
The Yankees aggressively started Torrens with Low-A Charleston last season and he’s much more prepared for the level this season. He’s still be one of the youngest regulars in the league and likely the youngest starting catcher. Torrens won’t turn 19 until May and I expect him to remain with the River Dogs all season. No need to rush him.

My Take
I absolutely love Torrens as a prospect. I love that he took to catching so well and so quickly and I love that he has a plan at the plate and offensive potential. Torrens is the next great Yankees catching prospect, one with a chance to be an impact player on both sides of the ball. Don’t get me wrong, he has to go a long way to get from here to above-average two-way catcher in the big leagues, but Torrens has lots of upside and all the tools.

Over these next two weeks we’re going to subjectively rank and analyze every player on the Yankees’ 40-man roster — based on their short and long-term importance to the team — and you’ll inevitably disagree with our rankings. We’ve already covered Nos. 6-10, 11-14, 15-16, 17-19, 20-25, 26-31, and 32-40.

Dellin. (Elsa/Getty)

We are now in the home stretch of our 40-man roster rankings and about to enter the top five. These guys are the cream of the crop. The impact players for both today and tomorrow. The guys who will hopefully be at the center of the next great Yankees team. Simply put, these are the players the Yankees need to excel to get back to being contenders.

Today we’re going to cover players three, four, and five. Two pitchers and an everyday up-the-middle player. The weird thing is we don’t quite know what to expect from two of the three just yet because one has injury concerns and the other hasn’t even played a game in pinstripes yet. So let’s get on with it. Here is the next batch of players in our 40-man rankings.

2015 Role: High-leverage reliever. Betances emerged as one of the top relievers in the world last season and the Yankees are asking him to do it again. Well, I’m sure they understand he might not be that good again, but they are counting on Betances to dominate late in the game, and for multiple innings on occasion. I don’t think he’ll throw another 90 innings in 2015 — the two-inning appearances might not come as often only to keep him fresh and healthy.

Long-Term Role: Closer, and it could happen as soon as next year. It seems obvious to me Betances is being groomed for the ninth inning, and all the bullpen depth they added this winter means it’ll be easier for Joe Girardi & Co. to navigate the seventh and eighth innings without Dellin. There is a question of whether Betances is best used as a setup man or being pigeon-holed into the ninth inning, but teams tend to use their best relievers in the ninth inning, and Betances is the team’s best reliever even after the addition of Andrew Miller.

Although it feels like he’s been around forever, Betances is still under team control for five more years, the next two as a dirt cheap pre-arbitration player. He’s not all that young anymore — he’ll turn 27 in March — so by the end of his five years, he’ll already be 31 and heading into his age 32 season. That’s too far away to think about though. Betances earned a lot of responsibility last season and it’s only a matter of time until he gets the glory of the ninth inning.

2015 Role: Starting shortstop. The Yankees have discussed platooning Gregorius with Brendan Ryan but that seems sort of silly. Ryan has hit lefties worse than Didi these last two years (31 vs. 25 wRC+). I do think the team will sit Gregorius against tough lefties, the David Prices and Chris Sales of the world, but I think he’ll get a chance to sink or swim against guys like Mark Buehrle and Wei-Yin Chen, the non-overpowering lefties.

As the starting shortstop, Gregorius’ first responsibility comes in the field on defense. He is a massive upgrade over Derek Jeter defensively and the team is trying to compensate for their lack of offense with great defense, so catching the ball at short is imperative. Didi is a standout gloveman with a knack for highlight plays and that’s what the Yankees want to see. Anything he contributes at the plate is a bonus, though it is worth noting he’s a left-handed hitter with a career .262/.332/.411 (102 wRC+) line against righties. He could help more than expected offensively, especially in Yankee Stadium.

Long-Term Role: Gregorius will turn 25 next month and the long-term shortstop position is his for the taking. The Yankees clearly like Didi, they’ve been trying to get him since at least the 2013 Winter Meetings and they traded away a valuable young player in Shane Greene to get him, so I fully expect him to get an extended opportunity at the position this summer. Five-hundred something at-bats. They want him to be their shortstop of the future.

Gregorius has five years of team control remaining. He’ll make something near the minimum this season and will be arbitration-eligible four times as a Super Two. The Yankees want him to spend all five of those years reeling in balls at short and contributing at the plate from the bottom of the lineup. Gregorius is not Jeter, neither he nor anyone else ever will be, though he has a chance to be a shortstop in this league for a very long time, and the team wants him to have that career in pinstripes. I have no doubt about it.

2015 Role: Ace. Ace-ish, really. Pineda finally made it to the mound for the Yankees last year and the little bit of time he did spend in the rotation was dominant: 1.89 ERA (2.71 FIP) in 13 starts and 76.1 innings. He was the team’s best starter last season on a rate basis and the Yankees want to see more of the same this coming season. Lots more. When he’s healthy, Big Mike showed he can be a difference-maker.

Pineda’s battled shoulder trouble since coming over to New York in the January 2012 trade with the Mariners, and last year he missed more than three months with a muscle strain in his shoulder. Durability is a major concern for Pineda. You can’t realistically expect him to maintain his 2014 performance over a full season, but the Yankees would happily take something like a 3.50-ish ERA in 2015 if it meant getting 180+ innings out Pineda.

Long-Term Role: Ace! Pineda is No. 3 on this list for a reason: because he is capable of domination and ace-caliber performance. The health concerns are never really going to go away — guys who have shoulder surgery tend to continue having on-and-off problems in their careers — but they can be alleviated somewhat with a healthy year in 2015.

Maybe Pineda’s long-term outlook is Al Leiter? Leiter had major shoulder surgery at age 23 — the same age as Pineda — and threw only nine big league innings from 1990-92 before finally settling in as a workhorse starter with occasional ace-level domination in his late 20s. Pineda turned 26 less than two weeks ago and will soon be three full years out from shoulder surgery.

Either way, the Yankees have Pineda for another three seasons as an arbitration-eligible player. At the time of the trade, they were hoping he would have risen to the top of rotation by now, but that didn’t happen. That’s baseball. We saw last year that Pineda is still capable of being excellent and it was encouraging. Now that he’s beyond the shoulder surgery, the goal is keeping him healthy and seeing more of that top of the rotation ability.

Coming Thursday: No. 2. The two-way threat with the most remaining guaranteed contract years on the roster.

A week or two ago ESPN announced the early portion of their Sunday Night Baseball broadcast schedule, and wouldn’t you know it, the Yankees are featured a whole bunch of times. What are the odds? They will be on Sunday Night Baseball on April 12th (vs. Red Sox), April 26th (vs. Mets), and May 3rd (at Red Sox). Three of the first four Sunday games of the season will be 8pm ET starts. Sigh. I mean, I get it, they’re the Yankees and they’re the big draw, but I hate Sunday night games so much. When I’m commissioner, I will make it mandatory that all weekend games be day games.

Anyway, here is the nightly open thread. The Rangers and Islanders are playing each other in a relatively big game — big for the middle of the season, anyway — and there’s some college hoops on as well. You folks know how these things work by now, so have at it.

According to Matt Eddy, the Yankees have signed veteran catcher Eddy Rodriguez to a minor league contract. I assume he received an invitation to Spring Training. Teams always bring extra catchers to camp anyway simply because they need guys to catch all those early-spring bullpen sessions.

Rodriguez, 29, is a long-time minor league journeyman who has only played two games in the big leagues, both with the Padres in 2012. He hit a homer in his first career at-bat (video) and that is his only career MLB hit to date. Neat. Rodriguez appeared in 13 games for the Rays’ Triple-A affiliate last summer before being released in May.

As you might suspect, Rodriguez is not much of a hitter. He has a .235/.286/.386 (71 wRC+) batting line in 598 minor league games since being drafted in the 20th round by the Reds in 2006. The Nichols Law of Catcher Defense says he must be a good defender then, and he has in fact thrown out 33% of attempted base-stealers in his minor league career. If the Yankees targeted him, I’m guessing E-Rod can frame the hell outta some pitches too. The Yankees love their pitch-framers.

It’s a minor move, but signing Rodriguez is notable because he is basically Austin Romine‘s replacement. Romine is out of minor league options, meaning he can’t go to Triple-A without clearing waivers, so I’m guessing he’ll either be traded or lost on waivers at the end of Spring Training, assuming Brian McCann or John Ryan Murphy don’t get hurt. Rodriguez is now the odds on favorite to back up Gary Sanchez in Triple-A and be the emergency third catcher.